Break Your Captain's Heart
by coloursflyaway
Summary: Bucky Barnes would always have torn the whole world down to see Steve safe. Himself included.


Warnings: Major and minor character death, violence, lots of angst

They come back to him when he closes his eyes. There are many, impossibly many, and he can't quite recognise them, can't quite see them, only knows that he's the one who killed them. Knows that some of them he can't even see, because there is no face left he could look at.  
In his dreams, they're silent, just watch him, judge him, but he remembers that they weren't when they were still alive, knows that they kicked and screamed and begged, thrashed and fought and cried; he knows that nothing ever saved them from him.  
They're his burden, his reminder of a past he won't ever be able to leave behind, they are seventy years of life he is carrying on his shoulders.

The days aren't split into hours anymore, not even into day and night, they're split into the soldier, the Captain's friend and whoever he is when he's neither of them. _Bucky_, the blonde, familiar man called him, _Bucky_, with a pained, incredulous voice; _Bucky_, and sometimes, he murmurs the two syllables over and over again to keep himself from sleeping, a manta, a spell, a prayer.  
It grounds him in the present, just like the few memories he has from the other man (Steve, his mind whispers, but he tries to forget the name again, not worthy of even thinking it) and he holds them close in the clear moments he has, when he is almost Sergeant James Barnes again. The soldier pushes them away whenever he returns.

It's easy, being him again,an asset, in fact it's the easiest of his roles, because it does not require thinking, doesn't require hoping and doubting and hating; there are no emotions, just orders. Hardly ever thoughts, just necessities, like eating, like drinking, like sleeping.  
It's easy, being the soldier again, but it's also terrifying when he wakes up and is a mouthy kid from Brooklyn, whose hands are covered in a girl's blood, because he needs to eat and for that he needs money.  
The first few times, he threw up whatever he had eaten right away, memories overwhelming him and making him sick, but by now, after weeks and weeks, he is almost used to it.  
Washes the blood off his hands and counts the money, checking his own limbs for wounds, because the soldier doesn't feel pain, he doesn't, but Bucky does.

He's no one in those mornings, just a body, waiting to be inhabited by one soul or another, by feelings or by orders, mechanically moving because he cannot ever stay in one place, can't stay fixed, because the Captain, his Captain, Steve, is still searching for him. Bucky inside him knows that Steve was never careful, never subtle, and he isn't now, either, makes it easy for him to stay ahead, never letting Steve touch him.  
He won't ever let Steve touch him again, he thinks sometimes when he's Bucky, because Bucky remembers a time when they did that often, touched and hugged and sent each other glances which lingered a little too long. And he used to know what they meant, too, used to feel Steve's eyes on his back in the most painfully pleasant way.  
He doesn't anymore.

Time passes, he goes from nothing to soldier to nothing again, and memories come back, not one by one, but in swarms, dancing around him in such masses that he can't see, can't hear because of the thousands of voices talking to him at once. The better ones are about before the war, the best ones about Steve; most of them are guns and ice and the unfamiliar weight of his left arm, which is so familiar by now.  
With the memory, something else returns, feelings, which fill up the cavity of his chest, sometimes make him hurt, and sometimes make him feel lighter – there are no reasons for them most of the times, instead it's like his body, his mind, test them out, try to find out if they are still in working order or too tattered to bother.  
One of them lingers, or maybe just comes back before he can find it missing; it takes a few days before he remembers the word for it.

(Words are hard sometimes, escape him when he would need them, get mixed up and sound wrong, come out in the wrong language, even in his dreams.)

_Hope_. That's what it's called, he is hoping, hopeful, because remembering might bring him closer to the man he was meant to be. Closer to what his Captain needs him to be.  
He breaks into an empty flat and for the first time since he ran, stays longer than one night in a place. It's small and smells a little mouldy, but it also feels strangely familiar. In the second night, he remembers a similar flat, Steve on his bed and him on the couch, sharing stories about things they were going to do when they were older.

All in all, he stays for three days, doesn't leave the flat except for the one time he has to, to buy something to eat; the curtains stay closed and he remembers and remembers, goes to sleep as Bucky Barnes and wakes up as him as well.

It must be good, he tells himself that, because the more often Bucky Barnes appears, the less often the soldier rears his ugly head, slides his body on, his skin over blood-stained hands and fingers.  
A few times, he dares to imagine letting Steve find him.

When he leaves the flat again, he takes the elevator, which almost makes him feel human, and when the doors slide open, there is someone on the other side. He has blonde hair and is almost as tall as he is, and for a few moments, his heart is the one which used to beat in Bucky's chest. It speeds up, swells and shrivels up at the same time, because he remembers what it was he used to see in Steve's eyes when their eyes met.  
He remembers being in love, hopelessly, impossibly, indescribably in love, his heart just in his chest because Steve hadn't taken it away; he remembers that Steve felt the same way. Remembers that neither of them ever acted on it, because back then, it was unthinkable, and the glances and occasional hugs which lasted a little too long, the rare kiss Bucky pressed to Steve's cheek, just a little too close to his mouth, were enough.  
But now… now they live in another time, a time with monsters and super soldiers and demi-gods, and that night, it's not only him who dreams of faceless figures and blood on his hands, but it's Bucky too, who dreams of kissing the Captain's lips like he should have done seventy years ago.

For three more days he runs, he walks, he wanders; the town turns into fields, turns into a town again. He doesn't kill anymore, only takes what he needs in the most discreet way he can think of, and for the first time, he doesn't think that he sees blood every time he opens his eyes every morning.  
They're still following him, he knows it, but he's good with hiding, even better with not being seen at all, so they do not catch up to him, Steve and his winged friend. Hydra and their greedy, ice-cold hands.

If anything, if his emotions, were working as well as they should, he would be scared, but when it is dark and he is walking through empty streets and alleys, he tries saying the name this body wore before, tries out Steve's too, tries both of them together. Imagines a world where his name could be a constant behind the Captain's, as a friend, a lover, a partner.  
Because his chest is tight these days, constantly filled up with emotions, some of them painful, some of them sweet, all of them tasting like Steve's name on his lips.

They find him in the end. They find him, and the soldier inside him is not surprised, but Bucky is. Bucky is frightened and helpless and doesn't know what to do.  
The men could be Hydra, could be SHIELD, and he doesn't see the difference anymore; Bucky remembers ice and needles and a saw, remembers blood and metal and pain so intense he could not even scream.

When he wakes up, the sun is setting, and his body hurts, his hands are covered in something warm and slick and everything around him feels familiar. He is no one, and the world, when he opens his eyes to look at it, is tinted red.

There is blood all around him, blood staining the soft grass, blood on his fingers and palms and underneath his nails, blood on his lips when he licks them. Blood seeping from the wound in his thigh, the wound in his good arm, from his side, into the clothes which do not belong to him.  
Slowly, he gets up, in pain, but alive, and looks around.  
Three cars, two burnt out, one intact, a dozen agents lying around them. Another dozen strewn across the field, some missing limbs, some missing faces, and as he looks at them, still no one, the soldier's memories come back.

They never come back in a swarm, a bunch, a cluster, always trickle back into his mind, like blood, like poison; they do that now, too, tell him about every shot he fired, every bone he broke, every life he took. And it hurts in an unexpected way, like something clawing at his chest, pulling him apart from the inside, but he still walks through the field, looking for the survivors he knows aren't there.  
Brown hair, blonde hair, black hair, and in between, a head full of curls, as red as the blood.

He knows her without stepping closer, can remember her face from Russia, then from the bridge. Then from the day before. Her eyes widening as he twisted her knife in her stomach.  
She had left him wounded, but he had left her dead.

It's her who makes it all real, pulls back the veil, and lets it all crash down on him; it feels like every bullet he fired from dead men's guns hits him at once, all the punches combining to one. He is no one, still, and doubles over, falls down on his knees, blood seeping into his pants, but he doesn't care, doesn't even notice. He is no one, and he's a monster.

The world blurs and comes together again sharper than before; for a second, he thinks of Steve and the thought hurts as much as Hydra's experiments did, if not more, because Steve is looking for him and Steve will find this. Will have to find this, and…  
For the first time, he cannot bring himself to finish a thought, so he thinks it again. Will have to find this and kill him. Kill him or let SHIELD take him into custody.

It's the only logical consequence, because he is dangerous, and Bucky inside him, who is still frightened, now more so than ever, feels his heart breaking. Because even after all these years, Steve still cares, he saw it in the other's eyes, can feel it now, with every breath, and Steve… Steve will shatter.  
Not just break, because broken things can be fixed with enough love, enough care; he'll shatter into a million pieces, if not more, he'll burst and crack and splinter, either quickly, with the sound of a gun, or slowly in front of a cell and with every beat of his heart. And he will be the reason for it, the one who made it happen, the one who should always, always have protected Steve, from others, from the world, from himself.

When he gets up, he's Bucky again, he's more Bucky than he can remember ever being, and every memory he has of the other is filled with love and worry and the all-encompassing, overwhelming need to protect Steve, who back then, was too weak to protect himself. Who is too weak to do that, again.

There is a man lying right beside him, dead and bloody, no eyes left, just dark, dark holes; the solider faintly remembers feeling them popping under his thumbs while the man tried his best to shoot him. A pistol in his hand, smeared with blood, heavy, but he doesn't mind either, picks it up just to find the magazine empty.  
No spare ones are in the man's pockets, which either means he was only sloppily prepared or used them up, he guesses it was the latter, but it makes no difference anymore.  
Bucky hopes that one of the bullets inside of him came out of this man's gun; he'd deserve it.

But there is something else inside one of the pockets, a knife like the soldier remembers using himself, and it's as good as anything else; the soldier doesn't feel pain, and Bucky doesn't care anymore, never would have if it meant keeping Steve safe.

His thigh is aching, throbbing, but he still walks as far away as he can, into the forest just behind them, crawls when his legs give out under him.  
It's important to get as far away from the field as possible, because Steve will be there, will be looking for him, and he cannot let his Captain be the one who finds him, for it wouldn't shatter him, but break him into pieces nonetheless.  
The soldier, who is still inside him, waiting for orders, doesn't care, but Bucky does.

Eventually, after what feels like an eternity, his living, bleeding arm won't move anymore, so Bucky, who hates the metal arm, uses it nonetheless, claws at the soft ground until he can drag himself forward a little more, just a few inches. There are small stones digging into his thigh, pine needles stinging and an occasional shard of glass cutting into his cheek, his hand, his arm, but he hardly ever notices, just concentrates on moving.  
Every inch he is further away from Steve makes sure that the other is a little safer.

His arm, or rather, his mind which guides it, grows tired, because he's losing blood, and he cannot remember the last time he slept, and Bucky is crying, because it's not enough, will never be enough. So he pushes himself up and leans back against a tree large enough that it will hide him for another few moments if someone comes to look for him.  
It must be old, must have seen things more awful than this, more beautiful than any future he could have had would have been, and the thought it strangely soothing to his mind, but does not dry Bucky's tears, doesn't soothe his pain, which by now is strong enough to overlay everything else.

Something makes a sound, nearby but unseen, and he tries to calm that bratty, scared, caring kid inside him down, thinks that maybe he won't be found at all. Maybe there will be animals tearing the skin and flesh off his bones, maybe he'll be ripped apart at the seams and Steve won't ever have to see him again.  
Will carry that image of him in his uniform, still all bright-eyed and glowing, with him instead of this broken shell of a man. This no one.

It helps a little, not enough for the warm tears on his cheeks to stop, but enough for him to be able to collect himself enough to give an order. The soldier raises his arm, the one that is his alone, metal wire, blood holding it all together, and Bucky, who is still stronger than both of them, thinks how fitting this is.  
To be killed by the machine which killed so many others.

It's not his arms, not his wrists, because they would mean unnecessary pain, and more time spent in which Steve could find him alive; it's his throat, and he only feels the knife pressed against the skin for a fleeting moment before it slices through it, a clean, deep cut, which burns like fire and stings like ice.  
Nothing happens, and then there is blood pouring out of the wound, gushing from the side of his throat, and Bucky inside him is thinking of Steve.

He thinks of Steve sick and bundled up in blankets, insisting that no, he didn't need a doctor, of Steve beat up and bloody and with a cold determination in his eyes Bucky had never seen in anyone else, of Steve trying to hold back tears when he showed up on Bucky's doorstep after his mum had died.  
Frantically, he's searching for something, a memory which will be his last, and while the blood makes him feel warm outside and so cold within, Bucky finally settles on one.

It's the Fourth of July, the first birthday Steve has had after his mother died, and people outside are lighting the sky up with fireworks. They light up Steve's face too, tint it red and blue and silver. Bucky is staring, he knows it, but he can't stop.  
In the other's hands, there is a small parcel, wrapped up in brown paper, because he couldn't find anything else; there is a gift inside, but that doesn't matter, because Steve is smiling at him, so bright that the fireworks look dull in comparison, so sweetly that Bucky can feel his heart ache.  
He doesn't know what Bucky has gotten him, but he is smiling nonetheless, is saying, "Thank you, Buck."  
Is leaning forward and for the first and last time in his life, their lips brush, because Bucky's head is turned not quite the right way, and because Steve knows it, but doesn't pull back.  
His lips are still smiling when they find Bucky's cheek.

The soldier waits for an order, he is dying, and Bucky counts the bursts of blood colouring the ground around him red...

_one, two, three_

..and remembers Steve's eyes shining the bluest blue he has ever seen, the firework outside fading, but their light still caught in his Captain's eyes…

_four, five, six_

… the feeling of Steve's lips against his, even if only for a second; the smile curling them upwards…

_seven, eight, nine_

..remembers Steve.


End file.
